Budget Infect post gitaxian probe
Well... here goes nothing
Peek is the strictly worse Gitaxian Probe but what's the point if it slows you down a turn. Infect has gotta be quick. Regardless, a couple of counterspells were included... since this deck is invariably going to be slower than it's T1 counterpart and probably going to face a couple of aggro decks in our meta. Dismember is a great card, since this deck needs to be able to hit player not blocker. I might need these over the Spell Pierces. They do come at a cost of 4 life though, so perhaps Mana Leak is a better alternative. Mana Leak is better to deal with would-be blockers, but it is a 2 mana spell rather than Spell Pierce which is 1 mana. That's a tough trade-off.
Spellskite could be really good, but I'm not sure. It depends how much removal I'm facing. And at $14 a card, it's probably not worth it.
Perhaps another Pendelhaven. Of course this deck would be made better with Misty Rainforest and all the other fetch lands. This will provide more consistency in color fixing and draw as well as possibly giving more opportunity for landfall with Groundswell. Unfortunately playsets of fetches are certainly well over budget. Inkmoth Nexus is a really good card as it can be a quick infect creature to punch with and it is also a land. It's pretty much an auto-include, since it provides so much value when 2 and 1 drop infect creatures are slim pickings in UG. Black provides some better infect creatures with evasion, however, black doesn't have the rest of the pump or the best infect creature, Blighted Agent. So splashing black is horrible for budget. Another good creature is Noble Hierarch because of the Exalted, as well as acting as mana rock. But at $60 a pop, it's definitely over budget.
For now I'll play around with this and proxy Inkmoth Nexus, Pendelhaven, and Breeding Pool since they are $10+ and together make up like $140 of the deck's price. Without these cards, the deck and some extra cards to play around with was only $31.
